Computational acoustics for soundscape ecology: Simulation and normalization

One of the major research themes of soundscape ecology is to understand ecosystem dynamics by measuring and analyzing patterns in biological acoustic communication in the context of the local environment. The emerging field focuses at landscape scales to quantify compositional, spatial, and temporal variation in these patterns. This is reflected by variation in specific acoustic qualities that must be taken into account to more accurately compare diverse soundscape recordings. A new software is being developed that aims to overcome this challenge. The MATLAB-based software utilizes geometrical and parabolic methods of computational acoustics to simulate terrestrial sound propagation, quantifying the impact of variable environmental filtration on acoustic recordings. This software provides both the ability to quantitatively compare this impact across ecosystems, and the ability to normalize acoustic recordings so that soundscape data from distinct environments can be compared and analyzed more accurately.